Siegfried Lederer escaped from Auschwitz on the night of 5 April 1944,
wearing an SS uniform provided by Viktor Pestek, a guard at the
concentration camp (gate pictured). Pestek opposed the Holocaust because
of his Catholic faith and infatuation with Renée Neumann, a Jewish
prisoner. Lederer, a former Czechoslovak Army officer and a Jewish
member of the Czech resistance, tried unsuccessfully to warn the Jews at
Theresienstadt Ghetto about the mass murders at Auschwitz. After he and
Pestek returned to Auschwitz in an attempt to rescue Neumann and her
mother, Pestek was arrested and later executed. Lederer returned to
occupied Czechoslovakia, where he rejoined the resistance movement and
attempted to smuggle a report on Auschwitz to the International
Committee of the Red Cross in Switzerland. After the war he remained in
Czechoslovakia. The story of the escape was retold by Lederer, historian
Erich Kulka, and other writers.
Read more:
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Siegfried_Lederer%27s_escape_from_Auschwitz>
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Today's selected anniversaries:
1710:
The Statute of Anne, the first legislation in Great Britain
providing for copyright regulated by the government and courts, received
royal assent and went into effect five days later.
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Statute_of_Anne>
1936:
An F5 tornado struck Tupelo, Mississippi, and killed at least
216 people during the second deadliest tornado outbreak in U.S. history.
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1936_Tupelo%E2%80%93Gainesville_tornado_outbreak>
1966:
During the Buddhist Uprising, South Vietnamese military prime
minister Nguyễn Cao Kỳ personally attempted to lead the capture of
the restive city of Đà Nẵng before backing down.
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Buddhist_Uprising>
1998:
The Akashi Kaikyō Bridge, the longest suspension bridge in the
world, linking Awaji Island and Kobe in Japan, opened to traffic.
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Akashi_Kaiky%C5%8D_Bridge>
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Wiktionary's word of the day:
whelm:
1. (transitive) To bury, to cover; to engulf, to submerge.
2. (transitive, obsolete) To throw (something) over a thing so as to
cover it.
3. (transitive, obsolete) To ruin or destroy.
4. (intransitive) To overcome with emotion; to overwhelm.
<https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/whelm>
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Wikiquote quote of the day:
The source of every Crime, is some defect of the Understanding;
or some error in Reasoning, or some sudden force of the Passions. Defect
in the Understanding, is Ignorance; in Reasoning, Erroneous Opinion.
--Thomas Hobbes
<https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Thomas_Hobbes>
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